Wednesday, July 18, 2012

It would appear from
this observer's view that FamilySearch has done nothing but back peddle
from FHISO affiliation in favor of their own GEDCOM-X. Even Ancestry has joined in support of the independent standards organization. FHISO as a
standards organization cannot create a 'genealogy data sharing' product, but can hold the
standards high for developers to follow, as with other
internationally-recognized
standards organizations in main stream technology.

Unfortunately, this
choice of action on the part of FamilySearch smacks of elitism.

"The unveiling of FHISO (Family History International Standards Organisation, www.fhiso.org)
at RootsTech 2012 in February was a highlight of the conference, as was
the announcement of GEDCOM X by FamilySearch as a replacement for
GEDCOM."

WHY IS THIS ISSUE IMPORTANT?

Consumers and developers
cannot afford to have a single entity create the file sharing standard.
We have seen how terribly this has worked with FamilySearch not updating it's GEDCOM standard in 15 years. Since that time, many other genealogy software programs and websites have gained acceptance. No longer is FamilySearch the answer to every genealogist's questions.

Without an independent FHISO-like standards organization, there can be no compliance enforcement. All genealogy technology developers should have a FHISO rep to ensure compliance.

Compliance enforcement is an
issue with the current GEDCOM standard being only loosely adhered to by
software developers who can effectively pick and choose which GEDCOM
components they wish to embrace. The result is consumers are held
hostage by some individual software programs, because to export data to a
different program means data scrambling and/or data loss.